And now for something completely outrageous

So last week, Lynn and I spent a wonderfully relaxing week in N. Truro, right down the road from the lesbian and gay mecca, Provincetown. Celebrating July 4th in P-town had a meaning all its own. The words independence, freedom, justice, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness have taken on a whole new meaning since the recent DOMA and Prop 8 Supreme Court decisions.

So don’t we get jolted back to reality with the news out of Indiana that lesbian or gay couples who seek a marriage license could end up in jail. Starting July 1, 2014, same sex couples will be committing a Class D felony worth 18 months in jail and/or a $10,000 fine for just applying for a license. Clergy, judges or others who perform a same-sex wedding are looking at Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in the klink and/or a $1,000 fine.

This is, for the lack of a better way of putting it–OUTRAGEOUS.

Forget about ever rooting for the Hoosiers, or even watching that good flick with Gene Hackman of the same name, Indiana has once again crossed over the great divide. Let us not forget that Indiana is at the forefront of denying women their right to choose. The state tried unsuccessfully to deny Planned Parenthood Medicaid funds because these crucially needed women’s reproductive health facilities perform abortions.

But the state has severely curbed a woman’s right to choose. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in Indiana

A woman must receive state-directed counseling that includes information designed to discourage her from having an abortion and then wait 18 hours before procedure is provided. Counseling must be provided in person and must take place before the waiting period begins, thereby necessitating two separate trips to the facility.

Health plans that will be offered in the state’s health exchange that will be established under the federal health care reform law can only cover abortion in cases when the woman’s life is endangered, her health is severely compromised, rape or incest.

The parent of a minor must consent before an abortion is provided.

Public funding is available for abortion only in cases of life endangerment, physical health, rape or incest.

An abortion may be performed at or after 20 weeks postfertilization (22 weeks after the woman’s last menstrual period) only if the woman’s life or physical health is endangered, based on the spurious assertion that a fetus can feel pain at that point.

It’s clear that Indiana’s legislative agenda has become a monopoly of the Radical Christian Right and that individual freedoms have gone the way of the DoDo bird–fitting since the folks making the laws are political dinosaurs.

So for the lesbian and gay folks in Indiana, getting married gets you jail time. I have a feeling the state would put more into its tax coffers by legalizing marriage equality rather than by fining folks for simply walking into a town clerk’s office and trying to get a license. But, that would be dealing with common sense–these folks gave up on that a while ago.